Explosion of a Motor Car

Director Cecil Hepworth constructs a shock-comedy from the stark contrast between catastrophe and the policeman's deadpan investigation. He relies on a primitive yet, for 1900, innovative substitution splice to replace a whole car with flying dummy parts, creating one of cinema's first dark visual gags.

What lingers after the minute-long chaos is admiration for the film's audacious and morbid wit, which manages to explode, disassemble, and awkwardly reassemble reality in record time. — MovieFinder Editorial